


the wait is worth a lifetime

by jjokkiri



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Post-Break Up, School Reunion, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: Two and a half years after they break up, Shin Hoseok gets the chance to see Yoo Kihyun again. He takes it.





	the wait is worth a lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> _For Nawr;_ whom I definitely need to stop writing post-break up works for. For over the past year, I've been so grateful to be your friend and have you in my life. This is your gift from me (I really hope you like it)! I hope you have the happiest birthday you can possibly manage, because you deserve the world and I love you so very much.
> 
> And of course, to everyone else who may stumble upon this: I hope that you, too, enjoy this work!

At eighteen years of age, Shin Hoseok thought that once he’d finished his military service the rest of his life would be laid out perfectly for him, and all he really needed to do was finish his education, and then he’d have the rest of his life ready for him. At twenty years of age, Hoseok realized that he was wrong and that everything came with a price and nothing in the world was easy. At twenty-three, after finally graduating from four long years of university, Hoseok thought that he’d never go back to his university for any reason, because he was sick of being in the same buildings for the last four years of his life.

At twenty-eight years old, Shin Hoseok realized that he was wrong and he definitely had a reason to go back to the school, even if it was for the last time. For the sake of memories, his graduating class had set up a homecoming for the alumni who had graduated in the same year—they insisted that they wanted to come back to the school and catch up with everyone; see how far everyone had gotten in their lives in the past few years that they spent away from the school.

Initially, Hoseok considered rejecting the invitation request which he’d received on Facebook, when he was sitting at his dinner table on his laptop (and eating a microwaved meal which he’d hardly had the time to heat up). He had a lot of work to do for the incoming publishing period—the magazine’s next publication certainly wouldn’t be at its top game, if its editor-in-chief had other things to do (call him a workaholic, but he took pride in all of his work). Going to the alumni gathering at his old university meant that he would need to spend time looking for an outfit for the event, and making an impressive his old peers would surely be a lot more stressful than overseeing his group of employees and trying to format a cohesive magazine.

But, his eyes moved over the list of guests who had accepted the invitations and he found himself dragging the mouse away from the _‘reject’_ button. Some of his friends on Facebook whom he’d decided to keep in contact with had already accepted the invitation, as the _‘going’_ text above their name indicated, but his attention was drawn to a specific name on the screen: _Yoo Kihyun._

If there was anything that could make him change his mind so quickly, then surely, this was it. With a deep breath, he’d considered the workload that he had at the company, before deciding that a slack of a single day wouldn’t be extremely detrimental to the outcome of the magazine’s publication—he was being dramatic.

Hesitant fingers clicked on the link of the name, opening up the man’s profile. The screen flickered white as it loaded and Hoseok rested his cheek in his hand as he scrolled down, when the page loaded. His eyes fell onto the location line on the profile: _Lives in Tokyo, Japan. From Seoul, South Korea._ Sighing softly, Hoseok supposed that if someone like Kihyun was willing to fly back to Seoul for a university reunion, then he should at least put in the effort to drive less than half an hour back to campus.

He leaned back in the barstool in his apartment and exhaled softly, tilting his head back and shutting his eyes.

 _Yoo Kihyun_ —pretty dark eyes framed with long lashes and sharp features, accompanying pretty pink lips that always seemed to curve into the sweetest of smiles; that’s what Hoseok found himself imagining, when he heard the name. He remembered holding hands through bulky mittens on late winter afternoons, when every word left his lips in brief puffs of smoke, because the air was cold (but they were warm). He thought of late nights in the university library, when his hair was a disaster atop his head as he stressed himself out of his own mind, where a surprise of late night coffee was delivered to him, accompanied with a comforting smile and wishes of _‘good luck’_ on his exam. He also remembered fleeting moments when they were so much younger, where the sound of sweet laughter would burst through the apartment walls and he found himself face-to-face with the prettiest man he’d ever laid his eyes on, pressed against the mattress and laughing.

Hearing _‘Yoo Kihyun’_ made him think of being young and in love.

Exiting out of Kihyun’s profile, Hoseok’s cursor hovered over the acceptance button, before he clicked it out of impulse and then closed the browser. Shutting his laptop, the twenty-eight year old editor-in-chief slipped out of the barstool and threw the empty plastic of his dinner into the trash. He supposed that he’d be seeing everyone he’d gone to school with in a month and a half.

He didn’t know how he felt about it, but there was a bubble of excitement somewhere in the pit of his stomach that promised him this would be something good for him. He couldn’t find himself agreeing with the feeling, but when he curled up in his bed, that night, he couldn’t help but pray that his gut intuition was right.

 

 

 

When he got to the university’s banquet hall, he hardly had the chance to shrug his jacket off and hand it to the clerk before a glass of wine was shoved into his hands by a dark-haired man whom he’d recognized as Lee Minhyuk—a friend he made in his first-year (when living on residence was all about getting shit-faced drunk on Tuesdays, before it was even three in the afternoon, and watching your grades plummet to shit), who was ecstatic about throwing the best parties on campus. Minhyuk looked a lot tamer, now—he seemed to have cleaned up his act and he no longer reeked of weed. In fact, Minhyuk was dressed up in a clean, sharp suit accompanied with a gold tie and he smelled faintly of a cologne Hoseok swore he recognized. But, if Minhyuk handed him alcohol at the very moment that he stepped into the hall, then surely, the younger man hadn’t changed very much.

Nursing his drink, Hoseok stood in the corner of the banquet hall, waiting for other people to approach him because he wasn’t the best at making conversation with the people in his year, no matter if they were still friends, or not. Minhyuk left him after handing him the glass of wine, so he found himself awkwardly lingering at the edge of the room. Standing in the middle of a banquet hall for the purpose of reunion made everything feel a little bit different—it made him think that he was supposed to be a little more formal with the people he once went to school with, because he didn’t know where they were in their lives, now.

The first person to talk to him aside from Minhyuk was a tall, slender man whom he’d immediately recognized as Chae Hyungwon. Hyungwon graduated from the same program as him, but they were never the closest—Hoseok only really knew Hyungwon through the younger man’s boyfriend, whom he’d been a lot closer with (though, he doubted that he and Hyunwoo would still be very close, if they were to speak now, because it had been years since they’d seen one another). Still, he greeted him with a comfortable handshake and a polite smile. He didn’t think that being at the reunion would be so awkward.

But, the more rational part of his mind promised him that everything would get better, and surely, it wouldn’t be this awkward throughout the entire night. Hoseok couldn’t really see the night getting very much worse, so, the more rational part of his mind promised him that he wouldn’t regret taking a day off of work for this event.

“Did you get here very long ago?” Hyungwon asked, lips tugged into a smile. Hoseok shook his head.

“I got here maybe fifteen minutes ago,” he replied. Hyungwon chuckled.

“And have you been standing in the corner this entire time?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Hoseok cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed and he nodded. Hyungwon grinned, patting him on the back, comfortably, and tugging him over to a crowd of other people. “Everyone that we know are over at this table. You shouldn’t look so awkward.”

True to Hyungwon’s words, he pulled Hoseok over to a crowd of men and women whom Hoseok actually recognized. From the corner of his eye, he noticed a shock of pastel purple hair on a woman dressed in a black dress, nursing a glass of wine that was as full as Hoseok’s still was— _Yoon Bora_ , he realized. He still saw her on billboards all over the city. She was a popular model, now. It was sort of amazing to see everyone that he’d graduated with and know that they were all in assorted successful positions.

The group around Hoseok’s closer peers quickly dispersed, when Hyungwon called for their attention, announcing Hoseok’s arrival.

And the recognition of everyone else came quickly, when they all turned to greet him. Son Hyunwoo, Hyungwon’s boyfriend (and now fiancé, according to the last time that Hoseok checked Hyunwoo’s Facebook profile and public relationship status), gave him the firmest handshake he’d ever received in his life, while Lee Jooheon gave him a confident and tight hug when he saw him. And Hoseok couldn’t help but chuckle, because the younger man made it seem like nothing changed between them (and Hoseok was glad that they’d stayed friends, after all). Im Changkyun, whom he’d still been keeping in contact with, was more affectionate—he’d held onto the hug a little longer than anyone else did.

There were place cards on the table in front of them, their names scribed onto the numbered tables. Hoseok pulled out the chair where he was meant to be sitting and he pursed his lips as he looked over at the name card beside his own. To his left, _Lee Minhyuk_ and to his right, _Lee Jooheon_ —he couldn’t see the rest of the table’s cards, because they were all turned away from him.

“What are you all doing, now?” Hoseok asked, when they all settled into their seats and a waiter brought them all glasses of water. Minhyuk quickly moved the glass of water away from Hoseok, inching his glass of wine closer to him with an innocent smile. Hoseok turned to look at Minhyuk, “What are _you_ doing?”

Minhyuk laughed, “We don’t drink water at this table. Drink wine if you’re real.”

From across the table, Changkyun gave the older man the dirtiest look that Hoseok was sure the younger man could muster—Minhyuk almost seemed to shrink when both Jooheon and Changkyun glared at him, when he quietly moved their glasses of water away from them. It had Hoseok biting back an amused chuckle at their exchange.

“Minhyuk aside,” Hoseok said, earning him a pout from the dark-haired man, “What are you guys doing, now?”

“I took over my father’s company,” Hyungwon told him, grinning in amusement at the childish expression on Minhyuk’s face. The younger man pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and tilted his head in consideration, before expanding on his statement, “It’s what everyone thought I was going to do. I’m thinking of making some changes to the whole company, though. I think it’s a lot better if we start focusing on technology advancement.”

“I started a partnership with Changkyun, just recently,” Jooheon said, grinning at the man sitting across from him, “We’re doing music production together, after we quit working under contract for a couple big agencies. But, you already knew that.”

“I’m working with Hyungwon,” Hyunwoo said, “We’re talking about merging our respective companies. I think it’d be really good for the stock, especially with the news that we’re going to be getting married, soon.”

Minhyuk cooed at them and Hyungwon flicked a napkin at him.

“What about you?” Hyunwoo asked, noticing Hoseok’s silence. “What are you doing? Anything new in your life?”

“I’m working for a publication firm here in Seoul,” he answered, flashing a small smile at Hyunwoo. “I’m their editor-in-chief.”

“That sounds pretty fancy,” Minhyuk grinned at him, “Is the pay good?”

“It’s good enough for me to have driven here in a brand new 2018 Mercedes-Benz,” he replied, chuckling and dangling his car keys from his fingers. The entire table made an _‘ooh’-_ ing sound in response to the remark and Hoseok laughed.

“Oh, where’s Kihyun? He’s supposed to be here,” Minhyuk remarked, looking across the table at the empty seat across from Hoseok. And for the first time since he’d sat down and surveyed his surroundings, Hoseok acknowledged the fact that Kihyun was meant to be sitting across from him, and he’d probably be spending the rest of the night staring at the other man, so long as Kihyun showed up—because after all this time, Kihyun still stole his eyes from anywhere he was. “I met up with him last week, when I was in Japan for a conference, and he said that he was coming.”

“His flight was probably delayed, unless there’s some type of crazy traffic jam from the airport to here,” Changkyun supplied, looking at the seat beside himself. “He said that he was probably going to be flying in shitty weather.”

There were collective murmurs of agreement, but Hoseok remained silent in the exchange. He didn’t have anything to say in regards to the younger man. He hadn’t spoken to Kihyun in several years, and he didn’t think that there was very much he could supply in regards to the younger man—he was so distant from Hoseok’s life, now (or at least, that’s what it felt like).

Hyungwon blinked—noticing Hoseok’s silence—before turning to look at Hoseok, “Oh, right! That’s the couple that everyone thought would stay together forever; are you and Kihyun still together?”

A small, sad smile crossed the dark-haired man’s expression, causing both Jooheon and Changkyun to fix their eyes on him with worried expressions. Hoseok pretended that he didn’t see it.

“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “We’re not. We broke up a couple years ago.”

 _“Oh,”_ Hyungwon managed to utter in response, his lips tugging into a small frown as he noticed Jooheon and Changkyun looking at him. He looked genuinely sorry, and for a second, Hoseok felt bad for making him feel that way. “… I’m sorry.”

Hoseok shook his head, “No, don’t worry. It’s nothing you should be sorry about. It’s between me and him, and it’s been a while.”

They drifted away from the topic, quickly, not wanting to make Hoseok feel uncomfortable when they were mentioning his ex-boyfriend—and especially not when he would have to spend the rest of the night in the presence of the younger man, whenever Kihyun arrived to the party. They didn’t press on whether or not they’d split on good or bad terms, but had they done so, Hoseok didn’t think he would have been able to put a proper name to their means of going their separate ways—not when his heart still skipped a beat, when he thought of the younger man.

There was a shift in the topic, when everyone turned their attention to Minhyuk, grinning wickedly at the dark-haired man. Hoseok quickly learned that Minhyuk had started a small cosmetics business on his own and it had gotten quite popular with young girls in South Korea, leading to a potential expansion to Japan. He’d turned his life around quickly, after what Hoseok had seen him do in university. The topics easily shuffled and Hoseok started to feel like they’d all seen one another just yesterday.

“—and I bet you Hoseok has so many girls and boys after him in the publishing company. He’s as good-looking as ever, am I right?” Minhyuk remarked, grinning wickedly at him. He turned to look at Hoseok. “Do you ever hook up with your employees?”

Hoseok’s breath caught in the back of his throat, not having expected the question. He nearly choked on his own spit, but before he could deny it or ask for a clarification of what Minhyuk was trying to imply—jokingly or not—a familiar voice cut into their conversation, and Hoseok couldn’t be anymore grateful.

“Hey, leave him alone,” the voice drew the attention away from Hoseok, all too quickly. “He doesn’t like the attention. Can’t you see that he looks uncomfortable? Hoseok’s not the type of person to hook up with his employees, unlike you, _Mr. Lee._ ”

Hoseok would recognize that voice anywhere—the same voice that used to laugh softly in his ear, on early mornings when they were lazy in bed, and whisper sweet affections. He looked up and everyone fell silent, when their eyes fell on Kihyun shrugging off his jacket and rounding the table to drape it over the chair.

“You’re late,” Minhyuk said, being the first to come to his senses and vocally acknowledge Kihyun’s existence. Kihyun chuckled, shaking his head. “And hey! I don’t hook up with my employees!”

 “Fashionably late,” he replied, grinning and ignoring Minhyuk’s rejection. He pulled out his chair and sat down. “So, does anyone want to catch me up? What did I miss, other than you guys picking on Hoseok?”

“Why were you so late, hyung?” Changkyun asked, curiously. Kihyun turned to look at him with a small smile.

“The traffic was absolute bullshit from Incheon to Seoul,” he replied, “And then, I couldn’t find a parking spot, when I finally got here. I ended up going to the hotel and parking there, then grabbing a cab over here so they could just drop me off.”

Looking at Kihyun, however, stirred a plethora of emotions in his heart. He couldn’t help the way his heart skipped a beat when he realized that Kihyun still knew whenever he was uncomfortable with a situation, without even looking at his face. It had been two and a half years since they’d seen one another in person, but the ease in which Kihyun had stated facts like they were obvious had Hoseok feeling like there was still something between them.

The fact that Kihyun still knew him like the back of his hand suddenly made Hoseok feel like their broken four year relationship didn’t end with all of its doors permanently closing. It lit a small flame of hope in his heart (and he swallowed it).

But, he tried to keep his eyes off the gorgeous man for the rest of dinner, when the waiter brought out their platters of food.

 

 

 

Mingling with everyone in his graduating year got boring, quickly. In less than an hour, after they finished their meals, he’d learned about where everyone who used to be a part of his life were. He made connections that would be good for the magazine, sometime later in the future, but he found himself feeling suffocated in a room where everyone was so familiar but everything was so different.

He walked out into the balcony, opening the doors and slipping out into the cool air of the night. But, he wasn’t alone, when he got out—perhaps, he should have expected that he would end up in a situation that seemed like it came right out of a drama. He’d read enough of the advice columns in the magazine to know that those stupid drama scenes _did_ sometimes come alive.

Moonlight shone onto Kihyun’s dark hair, the locks reflecting a bluish light from the darkness surrounding it, but Hoseok still thought that Kihyun was the brightest thing he’d ever laid his eyes on. In two and a half years, that special perception he had of Yoo Kihyun was something that didn’t change in the slightest.

His eyes fixed onto the small orange light flickering in the darkness and the familiar scent of tobacco, which lingered in the air along with the fresh scent of the outdoors and the slightest waft of Kihyun’s cologne—or perhaps, that was Hoseok’s imagination; his familiarity building a universe around him with everything he was once _so used to_.

“You smoke, now,” Hoseok remarked softly, when he stepped onto the main floor of the balcony with Kihyun. The younger man had pulled on the jacket he’d been wearing, earlier and he held a lit cigarette between his fingers. Kihyun didn’t flinch when Hoseok spoke at all, almost as if he’d known that Hoseok would eventually find him out here.

“I do,” Kihyun replied, turning his head to look at his ex-boyfriend. “I got it from you.”

“You got it from me?” Hoseok asked, his braver instinct pushing him ahead and making him step forward to lean against the balcony next to Kihyun. Kihyun hummed softly, confirming his remark. “I don’t smoke anymore, though.”

“Then, I _took_ it from you,” he amended with a chuckle. He exhaled the puff of smoke into the air and closed his eyes, “Took the habit and didn’t give it back, so no, you don’t smoke anymore. I do it for you.”

“It’s bad for you,” Hoseok told him.

Kihyun shrugged with a lazy smile. “That’s what I used to tell you, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he replied, nodding his head. “You never used to shut up about how bad it was for me. Talk about hypocrisy.”

He remembered it clearly: when they were back in university, he’d come back to class reeking of cigarette smoke and Kihyun would frown at him, brows furrowed childishly and he’d gently hit the older man, telling him that he shouldn’t smoke—insisted that it was bad for his health. Hoseok used to roll his eyes and tell him that he knew exactly of all the detriments of smoking, but he simply couldn’t help his addiction. And, at some point, after he and Kihyun broke up, he’d decided that he craved kissing the younger man over smoking cigarettes. Somehow, it’d been enough to give up one craving for another.

“I had to replace one addiction for another,” Kihyun replied, shaking his head and chuckling softly. There was a sad note to his laughter, but Hoseok pretended he didn’t hear it. “I couldn’t find anything to keep my cravings at bay when I was in Japan.”

“Your cravings?” he repeated, arching an eyebrow.

Kihyun nodded, silently—his eyes lingering on Hoseok’s face for a moment, a soft silence settling over them as Kihyun’s eyes slowly moved across the older man’s visage (Hoseok tries not to think of the possibility that Kihyun might be staring at his lips). He didn’t say another word about it, though—didn’t give anything away too easily. Kihyun turned his head and looked out into the cityscape beneath them, pulling another drag from the thin cigarette between his lips. The smoke blew in gentle wisps from between his lips, slowly escaping, when he opened his mouth to speak again.

“How have you been, Hoseok?” Kihyun asked. “I wasn’t there, when everyone was asking about how you were doing.”

Leaning against the cool railing of the balcony, Hoseok hummed softly, eyes moving down to look at the cityscape—the gorgeous expanse of lights—beneath them before choosing to look up at the sky, instead.

“I got the job I wanted,” he answered. “At the publishing company down the street from our old apartment. I’m their editor-in-chief, now, so I oversee all the articles that they try to publish.”

“That’s exactly what you wanted to do, isn’t it? Did you move?” Kihyun asked, looking over at him. Hoseok let their eyes meet for a moment, lingering and he pretended that his heart didn’t twinge with the need to reach out and pull Kihyun into his arms—pretended that he didn’t feel the need to tell him how much he missed him. The twenty-eight year old man nodded.

“I did,” he said. “I wanted to get a place a little further from the city centre. It’s quieter, there.”

“Fancier, too,” Kihyun remarked, arching an eyebrow with a small smile on his lips. “Isn’t it?”

“Sort of,” Hoseok replied, “I’m still getting used to living all alone at the edge of the city, though. No one really wants to visit me when I live so far from everyone else. I think I’ve had two visitors since the housewarming—my mother and my little brother.”

Kihyun laughed, shaking his head, “That’s what you get for deciding to live so far away from everyone else.”

Hoseok arched an eyebrow at him, turning his head to let his eyes meet with Kihyun’s again. This time, the younger man was already staring at him. Hoseok swallowed and bit down on his lower lip, finding his words; “Speaking of deciding to live so far away from everyone else… how’s Japan? How have you been?”

Kihyun was the one to decide that they should break up, two years and a half ago. He’d been offered a job in Tokyo—it wasn’t clear when the end of the contract would have been, and he’d insisted that it would be absolutely ridiculous for them to maintain a long-distance relationship, when there wasn’t a clear end to how long they needed to wait for one another. He was right. At twenty-four years of age, Yoo Kihyun was a blossoming talent in his field of work—he wanted to pursue screenwriting for films, and it was almost impossible to secure a stable career. Any opportunity that was given to him was a hope that it would be _the chance_ that he’d need to burst towards fame. They were young and they could easily meet other people.

Hoseok never really wanted to find anyone else, though. After they broke up their long-term relationship, he never found the need to dabble in romance with anyone else—not because he was waiting for Kihyun to return, but simply because he didn’t find the interest in it. But, thinking about it now, perhaps, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always been waiting for the moment that Kihyun would come back to his side and they’d try to work everything out all over again—no matter how foolish, no matter how hopeless. Perhaps, all of these years, he’d been trying to convince himself otherwise, but it all boiled down to that.

“Japan is good,” he replied, giving Hoseok a small, charming smile. Hoseok couldn’t help but mirror the smile. “I don’t get any visitors in my apartment, either. It gets lonely, when there’s no one to come home to, sometimes.”

The older man’s heart skipped a beat at the implication, but he silently urged himself to let it go. Surely, Kihyun wasn’t meaning it in any way that would push his hopes forward and urge him to think that he might still have a chance. After two and a half years, surely, he was the only one still holding onto the memories of their past. (But, even as he tried to convince himself that he was being foolish, a smaller voice in the back his head told him that Kihyun wouldn’t reference their past, if he didn’t want it back.

“The filming for the series is almost done,” Kihyun remarked, fingers gripping absently into the metal railing. “I don’t think I ever got the chance to tell you that one of my works finally got to be launched as a short drama series.”

 _Of course he didn’t_. As much as they promised that they would keep in contact, when Kihyun was in Tokyo and Hoseok was staying in Seoul (nursing his broken heart), they never actually followed through with the promise they made.

“Congratulations,” Hoseok said, after a moment. “No matter how late it might be, I’m proud of you. It must feel amazing to make such an accomplishment with your work, huh?”

Kihyun nodded, “It feels like I’ve finally done something right.”

“Well, you’ve never done anything wrong,” Hoseok replied, almost immediately, letting his voice drift off with the gentle breeze around them—into the silence, and then he pretended he never said it. He hadn’t meant for it to come out so sincere—it was supposed to be a lot more casual, but he supposed his mind never wanted to hold faults to Kihyun; never though the younger man could do anything wrong. Kihyun seemed to be deep in thought, when Hoseok turned to look at him.

“When the filming is done,” Kihyun said, quietly letting his words drift off for a short moment, “I’m coming back to Korea.”

“You are?” he asked, a little too quickly—sounding a little too thrilled. Hoseok tried to brush it off, quickly, and if Kihyun noticed the change in the tone of his voice, then he didn’t say anything about it at all. Hoseok didn’t know if he should have been grateful about it, but his fingers nervously adjusted his tie as he looked elsewhere—anywhere but directly at Kihyun.

“I am,” Kihyun confirmed—Hoseok could feel his eyes on him. “I have nothing left to do in Tokyo, after the filming finishes. The big picture when I was younger was to work overseas, but I’m starting to learn that I get homesick really easily.”

“So, you’re coming back to South Korea?” Hoseok asked, tilting his head.

There was the telltale sound of Kihyun crushing his cigarette, and then the burn of orange light Hoseok’s peripheral, before he heard the gentle footstep of Kihyun moving a little closer to him. Hoseok didn’t know why he suddenly felt the need to hold his breath, but he couldn’t help the way he inhaled sharply as Kihyun moved closer to him.

And throwing caution to the wind, the younger man wrapped a hand around Hoseok’s wrist, making him turn to look at him. Kihyun’s hand was warm against his wrist and Hoseok felt all the butterflies burst in the pit of his stomach, again. And silently, he cursed himself for it, because he’d thought that he’d left all the _teenager-in-love_ feelings back when he’d graduated.

“If I’m not being too hopeful,” Kihyun said, softly. There was a sincere light in his eyes that had Hoseok’s breath catching at the back of his throat as he looked into the way Kihyun’s eyes shone even in the darkness. “I’d hope that coming back home to Korea could also mean that I’m coming back home to you.”

Hoseok froze, eyes locking with Kihyun’s—searching his face for any clues of his words being a joke, but he couldn’t find anything in Kihyun’s eyes that it away; couldn’t see anything but sincerity.

“I’m not too late, am I?” Kihyun asked, fingers nervously pressing into the soft skin of Hoseok’s wrist. “I’m not asking something of someone who has already moved on, I hope.”

And his body moved on its own—the way it simply gravitated towards Kihyun; the way that his fingers gently tilted the younger man’s chin up and wrapped his arm around Kihyun’s waist; the way he leaned down and pressed their lips together, softly.

Kissing Kihyun felt like coming home from a long day at work, when he didn’t want to do anything more than lay down in bed and fall asleep for the next day and a half. Kissing Kihyun, even after all these years, felt like he was falling right back between the pieces of a broken puzzle, right where he belonged. Everything about kissing Kihyun felt so right. The warmth in his heart blossomed—with endearment, with affection, with _love_ —when Kihyun’s arms wrapped around his neck and the younger man stepped onto the tips of his toes to press himself closer to Hoseok.

They parted with a soft exhale, eyes fluttering open and immediately searching for one another. There was a peaceful silence between them, and a dust of colour on Kihyun’s cheeks—Hoseok swore he was the same way (blushing like a teenager, even at twenty-eight years of age, in front of the man he never stopped loving).

“How long?” Hoseok asked, swallowing, with his hands cupping Kihyun’s cheeks gently. The younger man knocked their foreheads together and closed his eyes, linking his own hands together behind Hoseok’s neck.

“Two months,” he replied, looking up at the older man. The way Kihyun’s eyelids fluttered open had Hoseok feeling so entranced with the younger man’s _everything_. “The filming ends in two months and my flight is scheduled for a week, after that.”

“Are you headed back to Tokyo, tonight?” Hoseok asked. Kihyun shook his head, his styled hair falling from where it was gelled up and into his eyes. Hoseok ran his fingers through Kihyun’s hair to adjust the dark locks for him.

“Early tomorrow morning,” he replied, eyes wide as he looked up into Hoseok’s eyes—innocent and bright. “I didn’t want to have such a tight schedule, since I was seeing everyone again.”

“Since you were seeing everyone else again?” he repeated, arching a teasing eyebrow at the younger man.

Kihyun’s cheeks flushed and he looked away, “… since I was seeing you again,” he amended. Hoseok laughed, not expecting him to actually adjust his statement, but his heart immediately warmed at the thought that Kihyun felt it was true enough to admit.

“You’re still so adorable,” Hoseok exhaled, softly. “How is that possible?”

There was a hopeful glow in Kihyun’s eyes—something about it made him look so childish, so adorable, even as he was standing in a designer suit at twenty-seven years of age. “Maybe, because you still love me?”

Hoseok laughed, running his fingers through Kihyun’s hair and then he pulled him into his chest, hugging him tightly.

“That I do,” he murmured.

Again, a silence settled over them—the sound of the music in the banquet hall fading out as white noise, when they leaned against one another and let themselves drown in the presence of one another. In one another’s arms, away from the eyes of everyone else, they found peace—wrapped up in one another and not needing to care about anything else.

When he accepted the invitation to go to the reunion, he knew he’d be reuniting with Kihyun, who had been the love of his life for his last few years of university and beyond, but he didn’t think that they’d mend broken ends so easily—didn’t think that Kihyun would still love him after all the time that passed. Looking at him, Hoseok knew that Kihyun was someone that could easily find someone else, if he really wanted to. But, then again, everyone said the same thing about Hoseok.

(And perhaps, it was simply the fact that they both didn’t want anyone else aside from one another. Perhaps, they simply just didn’t find interest in anyone else, if it didn’t remind them of being young and so in love; didn’t need it if it had nothing to do with fleeting moments when they were so much younger, where the sound of sweet laughter would burst through the apartment walls.)

“So, you’ll wait?” Kihyun asked, quietly—as if Hoseok hadn’t given him his answer in the way he couldn’t seem to let him go. After years, Hoseok could hardly wrap his head around how Kihyun seemed to know him _so well_ , but feel so insecure about the most obvious things—couldn’t understand how Kihyun felt so insecure about _how in love with him Hoseok was._

But, with a small smile, Hoseok nodded. He pressed a kiss to Kihyun’s forehead.

“Yes, I’ll wait for you to come home to me.”


End file.
